In the latter 1980s, Sega made a big push to compete with Nintendo in the home console market. The Sega Master System brought a whole new generation of gamers to decide whether they should be team Sega or team Nintendo. Then, in the early 1990s, there was the 16-bit generation battle between the Super Nintendo and Sega Genesis. In 1989, however, Nintendo broke away on sales with a new portable device called the Nintendo Gameboy. This was a game changer for gamers who were used to playing solely on home consoles. Now you could take your games on the go. Sega knew they had to keep up with the Nintendo products to be successful, so in 1990 Sega released the Sega Game Gear in Japan. In April 1991, it was released to the public in the United States.The Nintendo Gameboy was a huge success and sold over 40,000 units on its first day in the United States. By 1990, almost every Nintendo fan had a Gameboy. Sega knew it had a big battle on its hands to compete. The one feature Sega tried to use to its advantage with the Gameboy was its color screen. The original Gameboy was only 2-bit with 4 shades of grey and light…
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Todd Friedman is currently a writer for Old School Gamer Magazine and the Walter Day Trading Card Collection. He is the author of 2 books and has co-promoted the Video Game Summit for the last 15 years. Todd is also a board member of the International Video Game Hall of Fame.
